low light mixes

Cover art by Sven Geier,  http://www.sgeier.net/fractals/     I have talked many times here about how a single track or artist can inspire a mix. Well, that seems to have happened with this latest mix from Paul.   He emailed me about a month ago about Kubusschnitt, a group creating berlin school style electronic music. That discovery set him on the course of creating a mix of sequencer tunes. And...

  I remember the first time I heard the Daniel Lanois tunes From Eno's Apollo album, I didn't really care for them. I didn't like the pedal steel guitar. I absolutely hated country music back then and I associated the sound of pedal steel with country and nothing else.    Eventually, the tunes grew on me and I've come to love the sound of pedal steel guitar. I also came around on country-tinged mu...

  I'm not sure exactly where this mix started. I heard a few tunes that had a wistful, almost melancholy feel to them and began collecting tracks. The result is this new mix of mostly modern classical music but with a good dose of electronics and atmospherics. Most of the music is new with 10 of the 15 tracks from 2019. I think this mix would also work well as a soundtrack for fall.   Cheers!   T...

  Two years ago I did a mix called  "A Distant Pulse"  which featured a lot of tribal ambient sounds. I've been meaning to do a sequel and now it's here with "A Rhythmic Passage."   What finally got the ball rolling for a new mix is a new album from Louigi Verona called "Nocturnal Creatures." Recommended by my ambient collaborator, Paul Asbury Seaman, the album is similar to classic Steve Roach tr...

  I've been heckin' busy this summer. First of all, it's summer so beer gardens, baseball games, northwoods vacations, beer gardens, yard work, beer gardens, etc. Plus I've been doing a ton of freelance work. And lastly, my daughter is getting married in a month and I'm editing a video for the reception. I have not been able to get any new mixes going in a while.   So it's Paul Asbury Seaman to th...

  I can't tell you how excited I am for this mix. Well, actually I'm telling you right now so that first line was bullshit. Suffice it to say I love this mix. It comes from our good friends at  Lost Tribe Sound , an amazing record label that is having a hell of a year. Of course, last year was pretty darn good as well.   Ryan Keane, the man behind Lost Tribe Sound, has put together a mix that is i...

  In honor of the third season of Stranger Things dropping today, Low Light Mixes presents Stranger Synths 2019. This a retro synth mix that falls right in line with the synth sounds of Netflix's Stranger Things series.   Cheers!   T R A C K L I S T : 00:00 Just A Human - Stranger Things Remix 01:33 Pye Corner Audio - Deep Space Probe 03:54 Sinoia Caves - 1983 Main Theme 06:22 The Belbury Circle -...

  One of my favorite discoveries over the past year has been Innesti. The last album, released in February, is called Formless and that describes perfectly the music of Innesti. The tunes have a hazy, meandering feel that I love in ambient music.   Today Innesti releases a new album - Between Worlds, which I am very excited about. To celebrate this new release we have a new mix from Innesti create...

  I made a list of my favorite ambient albums of the first half of 2019 and noticed that there were 6 releases from the Whitelabrecs label on it. Harry Towell, who records as  Spheruleus , runs Whitelabrecs and he has done a great job expanding the roster of artists and getting better and better every year.   So to celebrate all these excellent recordings I decided to make a mix using all 2019 Whi...

  The 18th installment in the Sunday Morning Music series is here.  It starts with one of my favorite albums of the year - Spirit by Rhye. It's so beautiful and intimate. From there we get some more pretty tunes because that's what I want on Sunday morning - no dark ambient drones here, just pretty and calm.   All the tracks are fairly new - the oldest being from 2016, while most are from this yea...

created by and through the courtesy of Hollan Holmes     I am excited to bring you another beautifully curated mix from Paul Asbury Seaman. Anyone who has been to this blog in the last couple of years should be familiar with Paul's excellent mixes. The most recent of which was a train mix from a couple of months ago...   http://lowlightmixes.blogspot.com/2019/03/places-ive-never-beenode-to-high-sp...

  I love the film, Arrival, so I should have thought of this myself. But a listener commented on my Blade Runner alternative mix that I should do an alternative mix for Arrival. Yes!   So here it is - An Alternative Arrival Soundtrack. I absolutely love Johann Johannsson's original soundtrack, probably one of my top two or three soundtracks of all time. So this mix is not attempting to make someth...

   And now for something completely different. This latest mix is almost, dare I say, dance music. Yikes! Actually it's not like this is EDM/Dubstep with ridiculous drops and autotune vocals. But all the music in this mix definitely has 4/4 time signature.   One of my favorite discoveries over the last couple of years has been the music of Kiasmos, a minimal techno duo comprised of Ólafur Arnalds...

  Nine years ago I did a mix of 70s & 80s library music as a soundtrack for underwater exploration. I've always liked the odd vibe of that mix and always wanted to do a follow up. Now it's finally here with Subaquatic Universe.   It's essentially the same formula and sound as the first one. Vibraphone, fender rhodes, flutes and bubbles play a large role in creating this underwater universe.    Whi...

  Everything about trains is evocative. The sound of the whistle, the rhythm of the tracks, the sounds of the station, etc. Trains make for a perfect theme in electronic music mixes. Which is why you're bound to hear several of them this year from Low Light mixes. This first one comes to us from my frequent collaborator, Paul Asbury Seaman. Not only has Paul done previous excellent mixes for me, h...

  This mix has been brewing in my head for the last couple of years. Basically I've been planning a follow up to the  Luminouspaces  mix since I posted it in 2016. I finally got going on the sequel a few weeks ago while listening to "Constellations" by Jane Antonia Cornish. It's an absolutely lovely album. If you like modern classical recordings you'll definitely enjoy it.   The mix begins and end...

  I digitized my music collection a long time ago. I have a Sonos system throughout my house so I digitized thousands of CDs and packed up the physical copies. I haven't pulled out the actual CDs in a long time but recently I rearranged some furniture and realized that I had sofa table with a cd rack built into it. The thing had been in the same place for so long that I'd forgotten there were CDs...

  This mix came about thanks to the sleepy inspiration of two 2019 recordings - "Formless" by Matt Borghi and the "Sleeplaboratory" compilation from Whitelabrecs.   https://mattborghi.bandcamp.com/album/formlessness   https://whitelabrecs.bandcamp.com/album/sleeplaboratory10   I've been listening to both of these albums at night since they were released. Both are excellent. They serve as bookends...

One of my favorite discoveries late last year was the album In Currents by Innesti. It's a wonderful combination of field recordings, loops, drones and light touches. I put it on my second Best of 2018 mix.   Innesti has a new album coming out on Feb. 25th and we are lucky to have a preview of it on this guest mix he has created. The mix stays true to the Innesti sound - gentle, calming, floating....

  You know how when you see a certain director is involved with a film, like Christopher Nolan, you just know it'll be interesting. Or how music released on certain labels, such as 12k, will definitely be worth exploring. Well, that's how I feel when the tag "Curated by Paul Asbury Seaman" is attached to a mix.   Paul & I have collaborated on several mixes and all have been excellent. It's only Fe...

  The inspiration for this mix came from Mike Lazarev of  Headphone Commute . Last year he discovered an old hard drive with some of his old mixes from around 2006. Called fiftmuziek sessions, he posted some online and you can find them here...   https://reviews.headphonecommute.com/liftmuziek-sessions/   They focus on classic IDM & ambient electronica from that era & they are fantastic.   One of...

    We were having such a nice mild winter here in Wisconsin but then I had to go and jinx it in the last post in which I said we hadn't very much snow. Well, since then we've had two significant snow storms with another 12 inches expected over the next two days.   Snow I can handle but the temps have plummeted - the high temp yesterday was 4° with wind chills around -25°. Ugh. But it gets worse -...

  I haven't posted a Sunday morning mix in a long time. So here is the first Sunday morning collection of 2019.   There's not much to say - it's the typical Sunday morning mix. A little jazz, some ambient, some instrumental, etc. Most of the tunes are fairly new with three exceptions.   The cover pic is my backyard, but not from this year as we haven't had much snow at all. Of course I just jinxed...

  As is usually the case with these mixes, one song sets me on the path towards a new collection. In this case it was the song T by Dan Lissvik.   https://danlissvik.bandcamp.com/track/t   It keep popping up on a few of my playlists and I always thought it had kind of kraut rock feel to it. I realized that I've never made a kraut rock mix and that needs to be rectified.   I don't want to get into...

  This is the perfect mix to close out 2018 and look forward to 2019. "Turning Hopeful" has a more hopeful, positive vibe than most of my mixes. Which is why it should be no surprise to find out that it was curated by the one and only Paul Asbury Seaman.   I like working together with Paul because he takes mixes in slightly different directions than I usually do. These collaborations bring a nice...